Page 20 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
Frustrated, she stepped back, realizing that she’d gone about this all wrong. A list of guests would more likely be in his mother’s desk than his own. How utterly foolish to expect him to have handled such a mundane task himself.
With a muttered word under her breath that she would have to take to confession with her next week, that the priest might assign her due penance, she lifted her head to check her slumbering employer.
Green eyes met hers somberly from the chair by the fire.
“I would like to think you have an explanation for this intrusion, but for the life of me, I cannot think what it would be,” the Duke of Woodworth said quietly.
Chapter 14
The last thing the Duke expected was to wake and find the very object of his dreams standing over him.
No, not standing over him. That would have been altogether too much the stuff of those racy French novels that his first mate had liked to read through those long, lonely nights at sea. This particular minx was no lightskirt in an attempt at flirtation, but was rather quite brazenly going through his desk while he slept only a handful of feet away.
“Are you a thief?” he asked, sitting up and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, chin balanced up on clasped hands while he regarded her with no small part of amusement intermingled with the shock of betrayal.
It was an interesting combination of emotions. But then, she was a rather interesting girl.
“I only…I mean, I had thought I might have perhaps left the cloth in here that I used to dust the room earlier. I could not find it, and…I do not wish to be let go, but to be so careless…”
That the girl was frightened was clear. That she was lying, equally so. She looked at him, her eyes wide and earnest as she stepped forward into the light. Had she not done so he might not have seen the bruise upon her cheek. He sat up, but spoke cautiously, thinking how to ascertain who it was who had put her up to this act, and what it was they hoped to gain by it.
He tilted his head a little to the side, regarding her thoughtfully as he spoke. “I have seen nothing on my desk that belongs to you, as I am sure you well know. Will you give me the truth, lass, or shall I send you on your way?”
If anything, she went so pale that for a moment, he thought she might faint. The girl was altogether too frail to be in his employ. He had thought so when he had seen her first, and thought so again as she wavered on her feet, her amber eyes welling with tears.
“If it please you then, I will fetch my things and be on my way,” she said, her chin coming up, that she might meet his gaze with a frank honesty that took him by surprise.
“You would rather lose your position here, than to speak the truth to me? If that be the case, then I wonder whether I might have cause for the constable after all,” he said thoughtfully, though he made no move to do so.
“I have done nothing wrong!” She stepped toward him, her expression one of fierce fire and determination. “I have only done my job here, every task that was given to me!”
“And one besides, given you from someone else. Someone who left that mark upon your cheek. Yes, I see it there, though you try to hide it now with your palm since I have spoken. You were bid to come into this room to look for something, were you not? You did not to expect to find me here.” He stood, shifting so that he was between her and the door. “You did not find it, either.”
“How did…?” She spoke without thinking, stumbling to a halt, lips parted in shocked surprise. “Well, what matter is it if I have? As you said, I have not found what I was looking for, so there is no harm done to you or your own. I have lost my position, so what do you profit by delaying my leaving? You will not see me again—”
He stepped closer to her, stepping within an arm’s reach of her. Surprisingly, she held her ground, arms crossed firmly, her head tilted up to meet his gaze without flinching. Jacob was no giant, but he felt one as he stood there, looking down at this waif who dared so much, and could not help but admire the way she had so much heart, more so than half the men who had served under him. Would that he had had a crew of men such as she!
“Perhaps that is the problem,” he said softly, his voice little more than a growl. “It would be a shame to let you go. Especially when you might be of use to me…”
She backed away so hastily that she thumped soundly into his desk. “I am not a girl to be trifled with,” she warned him, reaching for one of the heavy books, holding it in such a way as to make clear her intention to throw it at him.
“Do not bother yourself so,” he said in irritation, putting up his hands before him in mock surrender. “I was not thinking along those lines. My intent is more honorable than that.” Though this was in part a lie. Those flashing eyes, that heaving breast, the fire with which she faced him down was unexpectedly attractive. He wondered what it would be like to crush her in his arms, to take her lips with his own.
He cleared his throat, forcing the image away. “I have a more subtle plan in mind. I suspect you are here to spy upon me. Likely sent by that lout of a father of yours. That is his handprint upon your face, unless I miss my guess. The fact that he struck you tells me you were not eager to do his bidding, which leads me likewise to think you might be amenable to an agreement of sorts.”
She glanced at him sharply, a wary look coming into her eyes. “For a man who is beset upon by enemies, you are remarkably casual about the situation.”
He chuckled at this. “Miss Price, I have been ‘beset upon’ as you call it, since I formally took service to His Majesty. You will find I prefer to choose the battlefield as it is generally more to my advantage to do so.”
“You seem to care little for ideologies and politics. How do you know that I am not a staunch Irish patriot who would happily see you dead?” she retorted, standing stiffly now that her fear of him had passed.
“I fully expect you to be all of those things. Do not think I am proposing for you to come amiably over to my side. I am proposing a bargain. An exchange of sorts. I help you in your endeavors, in return for your help with mine.”
She stared at him. “You cannot be serious.” She pushed away from the desk, pacing around in a short agitated circles. “You would feed me false information, making me to be a fool, in hopes of revealing those who have sworn themselves to be your enemies.”
He laughed again. “Girl, I care little for your plots or allies. I would give you God’s honest truth, I think very little of your plots and plotters. Let them come at me. What care do I have for a dozen Irish revolutionaries? My word might not mean much to you, but it means everything to me.”
She whirled on him, those amber eyes blazing in the firelight. “You would risk harm? To what end? What is it you would have me do in exchange, that is worth so high a price?”
